The problem of ‘Extinguished letters’ and the use of chemical reagents on manuscripts (1551–1553)

The examination of unknown sources reveals that by the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century, there was a widespread awareness in Italy of the damage produced by the passing of time on books and manuscripts. The expression used to describe such cases was lettere svanite or caduche , which indicated that the writing had faded and was almost unreadable, and, as such, hard to transcribe, indicating that the manuscript needed to be preserved from further damage. Already between 1550 and 1552, in Rome and Venice, some ecclesiastics of the Roman Curia attempted to brighten ancient writing, using vegetable distillate high in tannin. In two cases, it is possible to identify manuscripts processed with this method and to determine the preservation formula as well as an accurate description of each step of the method. The process, now brought back to light, anticipates the chemical experimentations by the Benedictines of St Maur and other techniques, widespread in the eighteenth century, and their basic chemical principle, namely the application of tannin. However, the earlier technique is paradoxically much more complicated than the one applied two centuries later.

New light on the role of instruments in exploration during the 1830 s

This paper sets out a new interpretation of the agency of scientific instruments in the field. It uses Actor Network Theory as a conceptual framework, which invokes the concept of non-human agency, meaning that scientific instruments can affect outcomes and processes. It argues that the instruments taken on expeditions by travellers on behalf of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS) had agency in knowledge creation simply by being present. Having bequeathed the instruments, the RGS had sanctioned the expedition, and knowledge had to result regardless of whether the instruments had been utilized as intended. The paper builds on the work of historians on the morality of precision, but, by engaging in a detailed comparison of rhetoric and action in two case studies, it suggests a different approach. Observing the strategies of the RGS for knowledge creation in varying circumstances, it argues that the instruments had agency owing to their embedded resource rather than their tangible numerical outputs. The instruments did not always work as mediators between humans and natural phenomena, as the human actants were not able to exploit them as such. Nevertheless, they had agency in knowledge creation as their presence ensured success. The paper is based on published and unpublished material, the latter in the RGS–Institute of British Geographers archives.

‘Your very obliging correspondence’: the Royal Society and the provincial Republic of Letters in Georgian Lincolnshire

It has been said that the Royal Society of the eighteenth century was in decline. The ground-breaking experimentation of the Restoration period was long gone, to be followed by talk rather than action, and the pages of Philosophical Transactions were filled with papers by provincial clergymen on natural curiosities and antiquities. But the links between the Royal Society and the Spalding Gentlemen's Society (SGS)—founded in 1712 and still in existence as the country's longest-lived provincial learned society—show a connection not just between city and country, but between scientific and antiquarian research, fields that had not yet assumed their distinct modern forms. A fruitful correspondence existed between the two societies for several decades in the first half of the century, and a number of Fellows (including Newton) became honorary members of the SGS. In this article, I show that the SGS did not simply rely on its metropolitan connections for intellectual sustenance, but rather, that this joint association allowed it to flourish as a dynamic society that cultivated international networks.

Performing Excellence: Nobel Prize nomination networks in North America

This paper examines how scientific excellence is performed in Nobel nominations for medical scientists. Performing excellence encompasses both conducting excellent scientific work and being recognized for it. Both dimensions are closely intertwined: doing and recognizing excellent work depend on each other. Tracing nominations from the Nobel Archives in Solna, Sweden, the paper shows that Nobel Prizes are only the tip of the iceberg of networks of scientific recognition, which belong to cultures of excellence. Approaching cultures of excellence through nominations helps to understand how scientific prizes were awarded. The nominations show that science is not just a cognitive activity but also a social endeavour, and that the decision about who is awarded the Nobel Prize is also an outcome of social processes. Analysing the nomination networks thus explains to a certain extent the predominance of researchers from the USA versus Canada (and other countries). It shows, among other things, that a proactive policy of Nobel Prize nominations is part of the culture of excellence in which American scientists often participate. The mechanisms of scientific recognition as reflected in Nobel Prize nomination networks and rhetoric give insight into the patterns and the background of awarding the prize.

Wilder Penfield dreams of the Nobel Prize

This essay investigates the relationship the Canadian neurosurgeon Wilder Penfield had, in old age, with honours and accolades, including the Nobel Prize. Documents from the Nobel Prize Archives shed light on his nominations and on the assessments the Committee took into consideration, illuminating the professional networks the nomination process activated and the values underwriting the adjudication process. Meanwhile, Penfield's correspondence and personal diary reveal the complex emotions that such a prestigious award can engender. Penfield expressed a reticence to fully embrace the Prize, although he had once actively worked to gather support for his own nomination. This essay also considers a little-studied phenomenon—the rejection of prizes. While mundane considerations such as wishing not to travel may have played a role, Penfield expressed a deeper disconnect between his own sense of self and the prizes he rejected, declaring a feeling of personal unworthiness vis-à-vis their particularities. Moreover, he also expressed a more general ambivalence regarding awards because they tended to single out individuals, and for him this stood in tension with the reality of the collective, communal nature of scientific work and medical practice.

Scientific ideologies on the move: Sino-British exchanges, scientific freedoms and the governance of science in Britain, 1961–1966

In the early 1960s, amidst a period of considerable debate surrounding how civil science in Britain should be governed, British scientists—especially those associated with the Royal Society—and their counterparts in the People's Republic of China (PRC) began tentative exchange programmes. Although such unusual interactions between Cold War adversaries were enabled by claims that science was a universal and apolitical phenomenon, the ways in which institutional and individual participants were embroiled in these domestic debates illuminate how their ideological outlooks shaped their views on exchange and on the science they encountered. By focusing on three interrelated exchanges during this period—an individual scientist's visit to the PRC, a Royal Society delegation to China, and a larger research programme bringing junior Chinese researchers to Britain—I argue that participating British scientists' conceptualizations of ‘scientific freedom’ framed how they judged science in China, and the value of these exchanges; their observations and actions during these interactions reflected their views on domestic British debates over the governance of science. This study thereby sheds light on how the ideological attitudes of participants of science diplomacy shape its practice.

From the life school to the gallery wall, via the portfolio: the collection, treatment, and display of oil sketches on paper produced in the contexts of the Carracci school

The three oil sketches on paper forming the basis of this study—all of elderly, male sitters—are attributed to unknown sixteenth- or early seventeenth-century Bolognese artists: painters associated with the Carracci family and their Academia degli Incaminati. This context was notable for its near-constant examination of the world around it through consistent drawing and painting, and for its success in exporting its negotiations of the contemporary religious landscape beyond Bologna, to Rome and further afield. A brief overview of the original intention, forms and early functions of these works is given, before focus turns to traditions of ownership and collection in the generations immediately after their creation. The British contexts that the sketches entered during the eighteenth century—collections at Stourhead House, Saltram House and General John Guise's bequest to Christ Church—are then explored through consideration of the social and artistic milieux in which these works were acquired. All three sketches have been mounted on to canvas or panel supports: this conservation history sheds light on how these works have been altered structurally, aesthetically and in functionality as they moved from an early didactic purpose to that of display in the eighteenth century.

Science popularization in nineteenth century France: Nérée Boubée (1806–1862) and the journal L'Écho du Monde Savant

Simon-Suzanne-Nérée Boubée was born in Toulouse (France) in May 1806 and died in August 1862 in Luchon (France). This paper discusses Boubée's activities as a science popularizer exemplified through the journal L'Écho du Monde Savant , published in Paris from 1834 to 1846. L'Écho intended to ‘present a summary of the most important news taking place within the savant world’ to the public. In this journal Boubée published a broad range of topics, for example, advocating the crucial role and extent of geology, and the utmost value of industry and agriculture. The working hypothesis is that Boubée's convictions and profile, intertwined with some relevant trends within the French intellectual context—as manifested in science and technology matters—constituted the propelling force for his project to popularize science. Boubée's commitments to popular education, together with other aspects such as valuing the knowledge of workers, and praise for women's education and their scientific activity, were aligned with contemporary political and social movements. Like many practitioners of science hitherto unknown to historians, his work deserves deeper appreciation.